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Edvardas Some Remarks on the Criticism Rimkus of Kant’s Theoretical Philosophy Vilnius Gediminas in the Vilnius Epistemological School Technical University

Introduction Enlightenment philosophy liberated the mind primarily from the authority of the Christian Church. The crisis of political absolutism and the collapse of feudal social institutions were caused by the strengthened secular mind. In the 18th century, achievements in the mathematical sciences of nature were obvious and acknowledged throughout Europe. Bad times came for traditional speculative metaphysics. To various scientists and philosophers, it seemed much more rational to explore nature instead of forming empirically untestable statements about the world or metaphysical entities. While Enlightenment thinkers had an optimistic general view of the capacities of the human mind, along came Kant with a philosophy overstepping the boundaries of the rationalism and empiricism of that time. The philosophy of Kant chronologically, and in many aspects even ideologically, belonged to the same historical period of the Enlightenment but differed from it in some significant features. To the optimistic view of human reason and faith in rationality, Kant contrasts his own thinking about certain limits to the human capacity for knowledge. In his transcendental explorations emerges the concept of “thing-in-itself”, which essentially restricts the cognitive pretenses not only of speculative metaphysics, but also of the mathematical experimental science of nature. Kant also presents his conception of epistemological apriorism in which conceptual instruments of cognition (notions, theoretical principles) are treated only as human subjective forms of cognition. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which collaborated with the Kingdom of Poland for centuries and even joined with it in a dual state, was occupied by the Russian Empire at the turn of the 18th century. Vilnius University (named as Imperial University of Vilnius), the main institution of higher education in Lithuania, continued to function. At that time, the religiously orientated thinking and Enlightenment philosophy of Lithuania collided with the philosophy of Kant. The movement of Kantianism was not formed in this historical period in Lithuania, but there was one attempt to form a base of Kantian thought: Johann Heinrich Abicht (1762-1816), a professor of philosophy, arrived from Germany

sTudia philoSophica kantiana 2/2017 3 Some Remarks on the Criticism of Kant’s Theoretical Philosophy in the Vilnius Epistemological School and propagated Kant’s ideas as well as his own philosophical views to students at Vilnius University, but his work had no significant influence either on the intellectual life of Vilnius or on Lithuanian culture. However, the philosophy of Kant reaped a body of criticism, among which the most notable was formulated by two Vilnius University philosophers: Janas Sniadeckis and Angelas Daugirdas. At that time they were the major epistemologists in Lithuania. The term “Vilnius epistemological school” is used by historians of philosophy.1 The concept is motivated by the significant common features in the epistemological positions of both thinkers, features that allow researchers to speak about a certain tradition of thinking and similar solutions to philosophical problems. At the end of 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, epistemology was something like a mixture of the sciences of anthropology, logic and psychology. The same can be seen in the epistemologies of Sniadeckis and Daugirdas. Both thinkers were protagonists of empiricism methodology, and acknowledged the Scottish Philosophy of Common Sense. However they understood and evaluated differently the potentialities of speculative metaphysics. Kantian theoretical philosophy, or various elements of it, are still a subject of exploration for thinkers from different movements of contemporary philosophy, which shows the continuing relevance of Kant’s thinking to our philosophical culture. The examination of historically formed interpretational and critical positions such as those of Sniadeckis and Daugirdas is a help in rethinking, developing and correcting existing interpretations and analysis of Kant’s philosophy or in creating new ones. How to assess the criticism of Kant’s theoretical philosophy presented by Sniadeckis and Daugirdas is the main problem motivating this research. The article presents a reconstruction of some of the main critical arguments directed by Sniadeckis and Daugirdas against a few components of Kant’s theoretical philosophy. The epistemological positions of both thinkers, as well as Kant’s relevant theories are interpreted and compared. The article analyses the viewpoint of Vilnius epistemologists with regard to the fundamental Kantian distinction between the form and matter of cognition, which grounds Kant’s epistemological apriorism. The treatment of the Kantian problem of the thing-in-itself by Vilnius philosophers, and Kant’s own view of the limits of cognition, are other objects of exploration. In some aspects,

1 See R. Plečkaitis: Vilniaus epistemologinės mokyklos teoretikas. In: Angelas Daugirdas, Raštai. (translated from Polish to Lithuanian by R. Plečkaitis), Vilnius: Margi raštai, 2006, D. Viliūnas: Apšvietos filosofijos slinktys.In: D. Viliūnas (ed.) Apšvietos ir romantizmo kryžkelėse: Filosofijos kryptys ir kontroversijos Lietuvoje XVIII a. Pabaigoje – pirmoje XIX a. pusėje. Lietuvos filosofijos istorija. Paminklai ir tyrinėjimai VI, Vilnius: Kultūros, filosofijos ir meno institutas, 2008, D. Viliūnas: Epistemologinė Vilniaus mokykla. In: Filosofija Vilniuje XIX amžiaus pirmoje pusėje, Vilnius: Lietuvos kultūros tyrimų institutas, 2014.

sTudia philosophica kantiana 2/2017 4 Edvardas Rimkus the differences and the collision between transcendent speculative and Kantian transcendental metaphysics are also examined. The article seeks to give some preliminary evaluations of the critical and interpretational positions of the Vilnius thinkers. The main theses defended in the article are: the understanding of speculative metaphysics presented by Sniadeckis, and his view of the limits of empirical cognition, both are quite close to Kant’s positions on those issues; Daugirdas’ transcendent and Kant’s transcendental metaphysics are different paradigms of philosophical thinking, which explains their incompatibility; the misunderstanding and/or rejection of the crucial conceptions of Kant’s theoretical philosophy are the results of the essential difference between Sniadeckis and Daugirdas’ empiricism and Kant’s transcendental methodologies.

Criticism of Kant’s theoretical philosophy by Janas Sniadeckis and Angelas Daugirdas Janas Sniadeckis (Polish: Jan Śniadecki, 1756-1830) was a professor at Vilnius University, a mathematician, geographer, astronomer, and philosopher. He worked at the university from 1806 to 1825, and from 1807 to 1815 occupied the position of university rector. Sniadeckis is a pioneer of such philosophical disciplines as “philosophy of science” and “philosophy of mathematics” in Lithuania. His general critical attitude towards traditional speculative metaphysics and his reliance upon the cognitive power of natural science and mathematics makes his philosophy close to positivism. Sniadeckis appreciated the Scottish Philosophy of Common Sense, and appealed to it against the philosophical movements of his time. Researchers describe his epistemology as empiricism supplemented by elements of rationalism.2 He was a vicious opponent of Kant; Sniadeckis’ position is one of the examples of the early empiricist critique of Kant’s theoretical philosophy3. Sniadeckis evaluated scholastic metaphysics negatively, and considered the mathematical experimental sciences of nature, which emerged in Europe during the historical Renaissance period, as the main form of cognition. He was the proponent of scientific metaphysics and the opponent of philosophical metaphysics. In his view, scientific metaphysics is a generalization and a reflection of the results of empirical sciences and mathematics – a philosophy based on the scientific exploration of reality or a philosophy of science. Philosophical metaphysics is the old speculative thinking that existed before the time of Francis Bacon. Sniadeckis depicts the latter mode of cognition and the results

2 D. Viliūnas: Epistemologinė Vilniaus mokykla, ibid., p. 110. 3 Possibly Sniadeckis was not self-sufficient or self-sustaining thinker. Some researchers state that Śniadeckis’ arguments are entirely borrowed from the French historian of philosophy J. M. Degeran- do. See for example: D. Viliūnas: Kanto kritika Lietuvoje XIX a. I pusėje: vertinimo ir kultūrinio konteksto problemos. In: Filosofija, Sociologija, Nr. 2, 2000, pp. 17-18. sTudia philoSophica kantiana 2/2017 5 Some Remarks on the Criticism of Kant’s Theoretical Philosophy in the Vilnius Epistemological School of its explorations as a world of fantasy and weirdness, in which only various opinions about things unachievable to the human mind are presented, but not the cognition of things.4 Sniadeckis attributed Kant’s transcendental philosophy to philosophical metaphysics and conceived it even as an attempt to reanimate the old scholastic metaphysics. He was an enemy not only of Kant’s philosophy interpreted in this way, but also hostile to the German idealists (Fichte5, Schelling, Hegel). Sniadeckis calls Kant’s transcendental philosophy “metaphysical mysticism”6 and sees it in the same light as these post Kantian thinkers. However, it is not easy to concur with such a treatment of Kant’s philosophy. Even in his own time, Kant dissociated himself from the philosophy of Fichte.7 Kant turned himself critically against speculative metaphysics no less than Sniadeckis. In general, the philosophical systems of German idealism are close to, or are even examples of, the mode of thinking against which Kant fought. He denied transcendent, speculative and dogmatic metaphysics, which oversteps the realm of human experience, and instead put forward his own project of transcendental metaphysics focused mainly on the exploration of products of reason (concepts, theoretical principles of sciences) and on their application to empirical cognition. For Kant, the speculations of pure reason are only empty thoughts without sensible content. In the philosophies of Kant and Sniadeckis, attitudes towards metaphysical speculations and general evaluations of this kind of exploration of reality are therefore quite close to each other. The depiction of Kant’s transcendental philosophy as an example of “philosophical metaphysics” (in Sniadeckis’ term) needs to be treated as a misapprehension. According to Sniadeckis, Kant does not trust in the testimony of the senses and sinks into idealism by considering sensible representations as unreal.8 If we assume that Sniadeckis discerns something like the subjective idealism of

4 See J. Sniadeckis: Apie metafiziką. In: Janas Sniadeckis, Raštai, (translated from Polish to Lithuanian by R. Plečkaitis), Vilnius: Margi raštai. 2007 [1814], pp. 120-121, 124-125. 5 Sniadeckis even collated the metaphysical speculations of German idealists with the delirium of the insane. It is possible to presuppose that in such a way he assesses namely the philosophy of Fichte, in which from the idea of the “I” a whole world with all things is derived only by means of pure reason – see for instance J. Sniadeckis: Apie metafiziką, ibid., p. 130. 6 See J. Sniadeckis: Apie filosofiją, ibid., p. 136. 7 See for example Th. Planting: The Real Meaning of Kant. In URL: http://plantinga.ca/p/YAM. HTM# [2017 09 21.]. 1972, R. P. Horstmann: The Reception of the Critique of Pure Reason in Ger- man Idealism. In: The Cambridge companion to Kant’s Critique of pure reason. Edited by Paul Guyer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, p. 337. 8 See J. Sniadeckis: Traktato apie filosofiją priedas. In: Janas Sniadeckis, Raštai, (translated from Polish to Lithuanian by R. Plečkaitis), Vilnius: Margi raštai, 2007 [1820], pp. 157, 160, J. Sniadeckis: Apie metafiziką, ibid., p. 126, 137.

sTudia philosophica kantiana 2/2017 6 Edvardas Rimkus

George Berkeley in Kant’s philosophy, the Vilnius philosopher’s opinion would be hard or even impossible to validate. Sensible representations or phenomena are not a mirage or illusion in Kant’s theory of knowledge; the phenomenon is the real effect of noumenon. The exploration of nature for Kant is namely the scientific cognition of phenomena or sensible representations, the cognition of their structural and dynamical features, as well as their relations and correlations.9 One of the two main distinctions in Kant’s theoretical philosophy is incomprehensible and unacceptable for Sniadeckis – the difference between matter of sensible representation or matter of appearance (Materie der Erscheinung) and form of cognition or form of appearance (Form der Erscheinung). This difference is significant in grounding his other fundamental dichotomy – the difference between phenomenon and noumenon. The essence of Kant’s transcendental method clearly strives to differentiate experience coming from the senses from that produced by human reason or thinking. In his philosophical theory, Kant seeks to separate and purify the spheres of thought and sensation. “I call that in the appearance which corresponds to sensation its matter, but that which allows the manifold of appearance to be intuited as ordered in certain relations I call the form of appearance. Since that within which the sensations can alone be ordered and placed in a certain form cannot itself be in turn sensation, the matter of all appearance is only given to us a posteriori, but its form must all lie ready for it in the mind a priori, and can therefore be considered separately from all sensation.” (Kant 1998 [1787]: 155-156); (KrV, B (2. Aufl. 1787): 34-35)10 For Sniadeckis, Kantian theory about matter and form seems to be rebuilding the old and unclear Peripatetic science about matter and form.11 In

9 Rae Langton argues among contemporary researchers significantly against the phenomenalistic interpretation (in the Berkeleyan sense) of Kant’s theory of sensibility: real forces in the physical world produce colours, smells, and sounds, which are not something real in the things experienced, but are only certain changes in human senses; see R. Langton: Kantian Humility, Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 142-146. In general, Langton states that in Kant’s theory exist real, physical correlates of colours, sounds, tastes and smells; there are real forces producing these subjective phenomena in the consciousness. Thus interpreted in this way, Kantian phenomenalism is not the position of Berkeley, which does not acknowledge material substances or things existing separately from the human mind; see for instance Dž. Berklis: Traktatas apie žmogiškojo pažinimo principus. Vilnius: Mintis, 1988, p. 67. 10 All references to Kant’s works are in accordance with the Akademie-Edition of Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften, Berlin/Leipzig, 1902. References to the Critique of Pure Reason follow the customary pagination of the first (A) and second (B) edition. The English translations are from the I. Kant: Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by P. Guyer and A. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998 [1781, 1787]. 11 See I. Babkoŭ: Protas ir „neprotingumas“: epochų riba – vėlyvoji Apšvieta. In: D. Viliūnas (ed.) Apšvietos ir romantizmo kryžkelėse: Filosofijos kryptys ir kontroversijos Lietuvoje XVIII a. Pabaigoje – pirmoje XIX a. pusėje. Lietuvos filosofijos istorija. Paminklai ir tyrinėjimai VI,Vilnius: Kultūros, sTudia philoSophica kantiana 2/2017 7 Some Remarks on the Criticism of Kant’s Theoretical Philosophy in the Vilnius Epistemological School the Transcendental Analytic, Kant explains the art of thinking by transforming Aristotelian categories, which Sniadeckis describes as old, poor, confused science, difficult to understand.12 The notion of “form” seems to him unclear and polysemous: in one case, form for Kant is an action of the soul, in another case – rules of action, and in a third case – unconditional mental images of space and time. According to Sniadeckis, the term “form” is not suitable for explaining intrinsically dark metaphysical concepts. Moreover, in the cognition of relations of phenomena, sensibility is an active human ability, not passive as Kant states.13 Speaking about the activity of the senses, the Kant critic supposedly appeals to experimental observation, whereas Kant depicts experience or empirical cognition as a process of synthesis between sensible phenomena (matter of cognition) and concepts (form of cognition), and in this sense any activity of the subject of cognition appears as forming conceptual activity. Sensible matter ordered in certain relations expressed by concepts is the result of such a synthesis process. To some extent, it is possible to discern a similarity not only between the conceptions of speculative metaphysics of Sniadeckis and Kant, but also in the understanding of the limits of cognition for both philosophers. Overestimation of scientific knowledge is not needed in Sniadeckis view. Cognition of phenomena and their internecine relations is the aim of the experimental mathematical sciences of nature. However, cognition of phenomena is not a cognition of ultimate reality: all things explored by the sciences are given in their relation to human beings, but not as they are in themselves. According to Sniadeckis, we can grasp how things exist in regard to us and in regard to each other, but how they exist absolutely in themselves or how they could exist in regard to other beings with different senses and cognitive powers – this is not our business and it is not science, but only fantasy.14 “We do not know what is the nature of matter, which makes the world perceived by senses, therefore the material world we cognize only from its history, changes and impressions caused to our senses, that is – from its phenomena”.15 Sniadeckis’ viewpoint that the mathematical sciences of nature cannot explain completely the essence or nature of things, that the scientific cognition of phenomena is not a cognition of things in themselves as filosofijos ir meno institutas,2008, p. 169. 12 See for example J. Sniadeckis: Apie metafiziką, ibid., pp. 126-127, J. Sniadeckis: Traktato apie filosofiją priedas, pp. 156, 166, 190. 13 J. Sniadeckis: Traktato apie filosofiją, ibid., p. 161-162. 14 Ibid., p. 170. 15 J. Sniadeckis: Žmogaus intelekto filosofija, arba Apžvalgus intelektinių galių ir veiksmų tyrimas. In: Janas Sniadeckis, Raštai, (translated from Polish to Lithuanian by R. Plečkaitis), Vilnius: Margi raštai, 2007 [1822], p. 206.

sTudia philosophica kantiana 2/2017 8 Edvardas Rimkus unconditional reality, at the very least harmonizes with some meanings of the Kantian idea of “noumenon” or “thing-in-itself”. In contemporary Kantianism, the discussion about the ontological status of the thing-in-itself is significant. The main problem of the philosophical debate is as follows: how to interpret the Kantian notion of noumenon – does it really exist or is it only a thinkable idea?16 It is not acceptable for Sniadeskis that “In Kant’s writings with the name of noumenon figures even theens rationis of peripatetic”.17 We can suppose that such a meaning of a concept is not acceptable for Sniadeckis because of his general negative attitude to philosophical metaphysics. Sniadeckis states that Kant intercepted the infinite mental images of space and time, and forms of sensibility from the school of Pythagoras.18 Kant introduces the obscure and incomprehensible notion of infinity (endless space and time), which had been rejected by mathematics as an unclear object. In mathematical theory, infinity is not as unclear as it is in Kant’s abstractions.19 According to Sniadeckis, the infinite magnitudes that Kant introduced in his science were never imagined in mathematics. Human reason is unable either to form or clearly comprehend the mental image of infinity. The idea of infinity would distort the certainty and evidence of mathematical truths. In mathematics everything must be grounded on ideas that are easy to understand. One of the examples given by Sniadeckis: a zero can always be added to the largest imaginable number, and such an increase can never end. Saying that it is an infinite number does not mean it is an infinite thing, but only that the addition of zeros does not end and should not end. The absolutely infinite result given by Kantians is an unclear thing for Sniadeckis.20 Kant’s Transcendental Aesthetic is an explanation of absolute space and time, and for Sniadeckis it is beyond the limits of human understanding; such things have

16 For a discussion see, among others, H. Allison: Kant’s Transcendental Idealism. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1983, H. Allison: Kant’s Transcendental Idealism. Revised and En- larged Edition. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004, G. Bird: The Revolutionary Kant. A Commentary on the Critique of Pure Reason. Illinois: Carus publishing, 2006, M. Grier: Kant’s Doctrine of Transcendental Illusion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, R. Hanna: Kant, Science and Human Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, N. Rescher: On the Status of “Things-in-Themselves” in Kant’s Critical Philosophy. In:Kant and the Reach of Reason. Studies in Kant’s Theory of Rational Systematization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, R. Adams: Things in themselves. In: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 1997, 57 (4): 801–825, L. Allais: Transcendental Idealism and Metaphysics: Kant’s Commitment to Things as They are In Themselves. Kant Yearbook 2/2010, Metaphysics. Edited by Dietmar H. Heidemann. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co, 2010, R. Langton: Kantian Humility, Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. 17 J. Sniadeckis: Traktato apie filosofiją priedas, ibid., p. 156. 18 Ibid. 19 J. Sniadeckis: Apie filosofiją, ibid., pp. 137-138. 20 J. Sniadeckis: Traktato apie filosofiją priedas, ibid., pp. 178-179, 190. sTudia philoSophica kantiana 2/2017 9 Some Remarks on the Criticism of Kant’s Theoretical Philosophy in the Vilnius Epistemological School no possible explanation. Kant’s unlimited time is eternity; unlimited without aspects and conditions space is something infinite. The eternal and infinite being is God, we thinking in God – Sniadeckis says that Kant’s science is the masked doctrine of Nicolas Malebranche. Whatever is without limits and unconditional surpasses human intellect, because the absolute and unconditional cannot be compared with anything; and what we cannot compare to something, we cannot understand. Sniadeckis says that Kant invented space and time as forms of sensibility and raises a question: why does Kant depict these things as a priori dependent on the nature of human intellect if intellect can create them by its own abstractions?21 Kantian forms of sensibility (space and time) independent of sensuous experience, were treated by Sniadeckis as innate things, as well as a priori forms of intellect (categories) and even synthetic a priori judgments with their own features of necessity and universality. Seeking to explain the mystery of thinking, Kant distinguishes empirical intellect caused by senses and thinking from the help they receive from pure intellect, which is detached from the senses and disposes of truths and laws that do not emerge from sensual experience. It is incomprehensible for Sniadeckis how certain principles of thought could exist independently of any sensation, and which do not need support from the senses.22 He affirms that John Locke denied the false theory of innate ideas and elucidated the mystery of how from sensual impressions one can rise to general ideas. The pure reason about which Kant speaks is not needed, because we could derive everything from sensual impressions.23 The language of general truths of all sciences must be sensible. Conceptual expressions are taken from things that cause sensation for us. In Sniadeckis view, there are no such synthetic and general principles that could not be formed by reason from the exploration of phenomena and facts. Thus he identifies Kant’s apriorism with innatism and refutes it as incompatible with the methodology of empiricism. Synthetic a priori judgments which are not gained from observation and do not depend on experience are something vague for Sniadeckis. Kant agrees that we receive a part of our knowledge through experience; he even separates “pure” and “not pure” a priori knowledge: “Among a priori cognitions, however, those are called pure with which nothing empirical is intermixed. Thus, e.g., the proposition “Every alteration has its cause” is ana priori proposition, only not pure, since alteration is a concept that can be drawn only from experience.” (Kant 1998 [1787]: 137); (KrV, B (2. Aufl. 1787): 3). According

21 Ibid., pp. 162-163, 165, 169. 22 Ibid., pp. 160-161,168,172, 174. 23 J. Sniadeckis: Apie metafiziką, ibid., pp. 129, 131-132.

sTudia philosophica kantiana 2/2017 10 Edvardas Rimkus to Kant, we have pure a priori concepts like “space”, “substance” and others, and a priori propositions in the theoretical science of nature and mathematics. The interpretation of Kantian a priori forms of sensibility (space, time) and thinking (categories), as well as a priori synthetic judgments as innate ideas is not correct. We think that would be more plausible to interpret all of these a priori things as creations of reason, something like pure conceptual models, which we must try to apply to the realm of sensible matter or synthesize them into phenomena if we want ensure their certainty and gain the empirical cognition that Kant calls an experience. Only the a priori statements of speculative or transcendent metaphysics tend to avoid this process of synthesis, and therefore such a mode of cognition becomes an object of distrust in Kant’s theoretical philosophy. The theologian and philosopher Angelas Daugirdas (Polish: Anioł Dowgird, 1776 – 1835) was a „substitute professor”24 at Vilnius University from 1818 to 1832. As a representative of Catholic philosophy, he valued the European tradition of speculative metaphysics and criticized Kantian philosophy. Daugirdas, like Sniadeckis, was a supporter of empiricism methodology in his epistemology, protected the notion of common sense taken from Scottish school (Thomas Reid, James Beattie, James Oswald), and advocated psychological logic. Daugirdas did not accept the project of Kantian transcendental metaphysics – the philosophical reform carried out by Kant – and defined his own understanding of philosophy as being close to that which preceded Kant.25 Daugirdas listed philosophers who, as he said, devoted themselves to metaphysical exploration and, leading by the natural mind, revealed important truths and thoughts about the supreme being, its features, relations with creations, and about the immortality and purpose of the human soul: Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, John of Damascus, Anselm of Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Malebranche, Leibniz, Fenelon, Bossuet, Pascal, Locke, Clarke, Dugald Stewart, and Degerando. In Daugirdas’ opinion, Kantian philosophy could not weaken the systems of “healthy metaphysics” that existed before Kant.26 As the theologian and apologist of speculative Catholic metaphysics, Daugirdas recognized intellectual observation or intellectual intuition, which are instruments for the exploration of the mysterious features of the supernatural world (God and soul). Kant denied intellectual intuition: it is possible to have illusory knowledge only

24 Daugirdas had not obtained a doctorate in philosophy, so he could teach philosophy only as a “substitute professor.” He did it intermittently, in the years 1818-1821, 1821-1823 and 1824-1832 25 A. Daugirdas: Traktatas apie logiką, metafiziką ir moralės filosofiją. In: Angelas Daugirdas, Raštai, (translated from Polish to Lithuanian by R. Plečkaitis), Vilnius: Margi raštai, 2006 [1821], p. 38. 26 A. Daugirdas: Prigimtinių mąstymo taisyklių išdėstymas, arba Teorinė ir praktinė logika. In: Angelas Daugirdas, Raštai, (translated from Polish to Lithuanian by R. Plečkaitis), Vilnius: Margi raštai, 2006 [1828], pp. 178-180. sTudia philoSophica kantiana 2/2017 11 Some Remarks on the Criticism of Kant’s Theoretical Philosophy in the Vilnius Epistemological School by seeking to cognize beings of transcendent reality by thinking alone, and not linking thoughts to sensual phenomena. Intellectual intuition would signify cognition of objects, and even access to them, only by concepts; sensual material would not be needed. This way of cognition could possibly be inherent for God, but not for any finite being like a human, whose intellect thinks only and cannot observe anything (Kant 1998 [1787]: 250); (KrV, B (2. Aufl. 1787): 139). Kant defines the human experience or empirical cognition as a synthesis of sensual material and concepts. The conceptual tools of cognition (Kant’s a priori concepts, forms of theoretical principles) can be realized only in sensual material. Kant understands concepts and propositions formulated and used without regard to sensual phenomena as empty thoughts overstepping experience. “All cognition of things out of mere pure understanding or pure reason is nothing but sheer illusion, and there is truth only in experience.” (Kant 2004 [1783]: 125-126); (Prol, AA04: 374 )27. The history of philosophy and science shows that common sense, often further strengthened by majority opinion, does not necessarily ensure correct cognition; it can also be an inexhaustible source of mistakes, a factor that stops intellectual progress. Daugirdas appeals to principles of common sense, namely speaking about the true and constant (steady) natural laws of thinking, even a universal mind. According to him, logical thinking would have to lead philosophy, not vice versa. Belonging to the paradigm of transcendent metaphysics, Daugirdas speaks out against post-Kantian German idealistic philosophy, which however is closer to that kind of speculative thinking propagated before Kant than it is to Kantian philosophy.28 As Romanas Plečkaitis states: “The creation of polysemous logic in the twentieth century showed that principles which logically organize material of experience (Daugirdas calls them main rules of thinking) are not separate from experience. It has been elucidated that the laws of logic are constructed. Physical reality is plastic; it is possible to change it. The way of thinking about reality is also flexible – it is changeable, correctable, it is possible to refuse some laws of logic and construct the new ones depending on the area of objects in which the reasoning goes. Laws of logic are not constant regulating principles, as Enlightenment philosophers thought, they can be transformed, they are hypotheses which can be corrected.”29 Kant also spoke about “eternal and unchangeable laws of reason” (Kant 1998 [1781]: 101); (KrV, A (1. Aufl. 1781): xii),

27 The quotation is from I. Kant: Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Come Forward as Science, with Selections from the Critique of Pure Reason. Translated and edited by Gary Hatfield. Cambridge: Cambridge university press, 2004 [1783]. 28 A. Daugirdas: Prigimtinių mąstymo taisyklių išdėstymas, arba Teorinė ir praktinė logika, ibid., pp. 170-172. 29 R. Plečkaitis: Vilniaus epistemologinės mokyklos teoretikas, ibid., p. 21.

sTudia philosophica kantiana 2/2017 12 Edvardas Rimkus but the creativity of the mind is quite clearly expressed in his philosophy: a priori forms of sensibility (space and time) and thinking (categories), schemes, a priori rules of thinking and other theoretical principles of the sciences are essentially constructs that have to be justified by empirical cognition. In general, Kant thinks in the paradigm of metaphysical nominalism. We believe that it would be false to interpret his theories as a philosophical example of metaphysical realism. The laws of mind and a priori components of cognition examined by Kant should not be interpreted either as innate or as eternal and unchangeable principles of thinking in the sense of Plato. In the spirit of Locke, Daugirdas admitted that we cannot cognize the essence of things, insofar as they do not have practical, instrumental meaning for humans30, and this view is not only close to the position of Sniadeckis, but is also not absolutely inconsistent with the Kantian conception of cognition. However, Daugirdas saw a denial of the truthfulness of human cognition in Kant’s philosophy, and in this view criticized the Kantian concept of the thing-in- itself. According to Daugirdas, the results of Kant’s transcendental explorations, instead of explaining the truthfulness of human cognition, ruined it and paved the way to idealism. Though Kant was not an idealist in the strict sense, he left open the possibility for the existence of some sort of noumena or things- in-themselves existing separately from the thoughts and images we may have. However, the shape of that reality is poor, insignificant and mysterious. Kant equated it to the unknown X that the human mind is never able to reveal. Not only is it impossible for us to know what things-in-themselves are, but also we are unable to say whether they or noumena are entities or features, whether there are a lot of them in the world or only one, because, according to Kant, images of size, entity, and features are only categories of the ability to understand or intellect (Verstand), and when we apply them to the things-in-themselves they cannot have any meaning. Moreover, we cannot state whether things in themselves or noumena are extensive or not complex, constant or not constant. Extension and time are no more than forms of sensibility, and cannot be applied to noumena. In Sniadeckis’ opinion, the demonstration of the truthfulness of human cognition in such a poor and worthless spectacle almost equates to its negation, which explains why Kantian science in itself differs only a little from complete idealism. From Daugirdas’ point of view, it follows from the principles of Kant that the reality or existence of things-in-themselves cannot be proved. Similarly to Sniadeckis, Daugirdas assigns to Kant a radical, even Berkeleyan, type of idealism. Absolute idealism or skepticism, according to Daugirdas, has taken various odd forms resulting from the Kantian reform - Fichte and Schelling arose from Kant.

30 D. Viliūnas: Epistemologinė Vilniaus mokykla, ibid., p. 125. sTudia philoSophica kantiana 2/2017 13 Some Remarks on the Criticism of Kant’s Theoretical Philosophy in the Vilnius Epistemological School Idealism is opposed to the natural aspirations of human intelligence. A human always has to relate thoughts and images with something different from them, with what is called reality.31 Daugirdas treated Kant’s apriorism as too radical, and identified it with innatism; he perceives innate images that arise from the nature of intellect in Kantian theory.32 Daugirdas thought that the basis of Kantian idealism is the theory of innate ideas/truths; a similar innatism is seen in the works of Plato, Descartes, Berkeley and Leibniz. Daugirdas joined with the opponents of innatism David Hume and John Locke, and suggested discarding from Kantian science the theory of innate ideas/truths and subjective idealism, which states that image and reality, thought and world are the same.33 The question of the existence of reality or things that do not depend on consciousness had more meaning for Daugirdas than it did for Sniadeckis. However, both philosophers held the position of epistemological realism: we cognize the reality that we can reach by our senses; that which is true does not depend on consciousness, but exists objectively. According to Daugirdas, Kant states inaccurately that the image of pure space is a priori and intellectual, free from any empirical elements. Any reality beyond intelligence cannot match the mental image of pure space. It is necessary that in our thoughts the image of space would link to the image of full extension. Pure space beyond our thought is nothing. Daugirdas says that if this a priori image is only negative in respect of the image of full extension, then it is not that the latter arises from the former, as Kant says, but on the contrary the former arises from the latter. The image of pure space cannot be a priori; it arises from the image of full extension, which is obtained through the senses. In Daugirdas’ point of view, Kant is inaccurate in saying that the image of space in our thoughts can purge itself of any empirical elements, of the senses. Daugirdas maintains that he, like Kant, denies that for the image of space there is inherent material or a corresponding reality, though Daugirdas differs from Kant in that he does not derive full extension from pure space as Kant did, but vice versa. If we assume with Kant that full extension, that is to say our images of any real so-called bodies arise from space as the first image of distinctive form, then from that we would need to conclude that, since this form has no truthfulness, likewise the images

31 A. Daugirdas: Prigimtinių mąstymo taisyklių išdėstymas, arba Teorinė ir praktinė logika, ibid., pp. 167-169, 263. 32 Ibid., p. 241. 33 E. Vasilevskis: Kanto etika katalikiškojo Apšvietos teoretiko požiūriu. In: D. Viliūnas (ed.) Apšvietos ir romantizmo kryžkelėse: Filosofijos kryptys ir kontroversijos Lietuvoje XVIII a. Pabaigoje – pirmoje XIX a. pusėje. Lietuvos filosofijos istorija. Paminklai ir tyrinėjimai VI, Vilnius: Kultūros, filosofijos ir meno institutas, 2008, p. 70.

sTudia philosophica kantiana 2/2017 14 Edvardas Rimkus that arise from it cannot have truthfulness. Daugirdas affirms the opposite of Kant - when space is understood as a negative image in respect to the image of full extension, than the real existence of material entities, or rather the mechanical basis of them, is maintained.34 In fact, Kant says that extension or the spatiality of bodies is possible only because of that mental image of pure space. However, it is not correct to assign radical idealism to Kant, for whom experience is a synthesis of mental a priori forms of cognition (or conceptual models) and cognitive matter, which is provided by the senses. Daugirdas, like Sniadeckis, holding to empiricism methodology, derives every notion, even the notion of space, from sensible observation; this is a result of abstraction for him, but Kant focuses not on the question of the genesis of notions but rather on the question of the applicability of a priori notions to phenomena of experience. Daugirdas analyzes time similarly. In his point of view, Kantian analysis of time is incomplete. The sequence of passing sensations that we have causes the image of time.35 Space and time for Kant are a priori forms of sensibility, for Daugirdas they are features of things.36 From Daugirdas’ point of view, Kant denied without sufficient reason the concept the human soul as a substance. “Not only do we know our soul as a substance but we also know its fixed and impervious features.”37 In “The Paralogism of Pure Reason”, Kant states that we would be mistaken in assuming that real existence is inherent for the soul taken as a substance. In Kant’s view, reality is natural to the notion of substance (Begriff der Substanz) only as it is linked with external experience (Erfahrung, sinnliche Anschauung) – we have to consider as real only those things that our senses report as being existent. Whereas the soul cannot look at itself through the senses as though it were an external object, it nevertheless imagines itself as a substance, but can make a mistake, because it is deciding about something it cannot observe through the external senses.38 According to Daugirdas, the human soul is real, single, undivided, immaterial substance; it contains all the thoughts and images of a human being. He disagrees about the impossibility of having any constant observation of our own soul. He argues that it is not necessary to confuse the mental image of “I” with the thinking entity or soul. The mental image of “I” can disappear and return, but as long as the human being lives, he imagines himself as one and the

34 A. Daugirdas: Prigimtinių mąstymo taisyklių išdėstymas, arba Teorinė ir praktinė logika, ibid., pp. 203-204, 261-263. 35 Ibid., pp. 276-277, 283. 36 I. Babkoŭ: Protas ir „neprotingumas“: epochų riba – vėlyvoji Apšvieta, ibid.,p. 152. 37 A. Daugirdas: Prigimtinių mąstymo taisyklių išdėstymas, arba Teorinė ir praktinė logika, ibid.,p. 196. 38 Ibid., pp. 225-226, 228. sTudia philoSophica kantiana 2/2017 15 Some Remarks on the Criticism of Kant’s Theoretical Philosophy in the Vilnius Epistemological School same, as a continuously lasting entity that does not lose its being whenever the mental image of “I” vanishes. According to Daugirdas, there are two “I” in every human being: one, the thinking substance or soul of the human being is constant and unchangeable, the other, the mental image of this substance, is variable and intermittent. The first contains the second. The reproach of transcendental metaphysics, which seeks to weaken the universal image of the soul as being substance, has no value.39 Thesoul is a problematical notion for Kant: we can think of the soul as a thing-in-itself, but we cannot cognize it since we have no sensual image of it. Kant sees a possibility to legitimate the use of the notions “soul” and “God” by arguments of practical reason grounding morality. In the “Critique Of Pure Reason”, Kant presents a theory of transcendental apperception or transcendental consciousness in which the subject of cognition is depicted as a fundamental condition of experience or empirical cognition. This subject is at the centre of cognitive syntheses. Although the theory of transcendental consciousness is not only epistemological, it seems to us that it is possible to discern an attempt to elucidate the mechanism of functioning or even of the emergence of human consciousness; however it is not possible to identify it with the concept of soul, which is one of the most significant concepts in transcendent metaphysics, as it is in Daugirdas’ thinking.

Conclusions Although Sniadeckis attributed Kant’s transcendental philosophy to philosophical metaphysics, which is an obvious misunderstanding, both thinkers have a quite similar comprehension of speculative metaphysics. The assessment of Kant’s philosophy as idealism in the Berkeleyan sense is also groundless: in Kant’s philosophical theory the phenomenon is the real result of noumenon. The Kantian conception of the thing-in-itself, besides other important aspects, expresses an understanding of reality as external or independent of the human consciousness; however Sniadeckis pays no attention to this point. Treating Kant’s term of form as vague, Sniadeckis was not able to evaluate properly the fundamental distinction between matter and form of cognition, which grounds Kant’s apriorism and is crucial to the Kantian conception of empirical cognition or experience. The viewpoints of both thinkers on the limits of empirical cognition are also quite similar. Sniadeckis comprehended the mathematical experimental cognition of phenomena as relative, as proceeding in relation to the human being. This same aspect is undoubtedly present in the theoretical philosophy of Kant; only Kant’s view on this point is more radical. Empirical cognition is subjective in the human sense: Kant reflects not only the limitation of sensible access to

39 Ibid., pp. 233, 231-232.

sTudia philosophica kantiana 2/2017 16 Edvardas Rimkus reality, but even the limitation of conceptual access to it. Sniadeckis’ criticism of Kant’s a priori forms of sensibility seems productive. Invoking arguments from his own philosophy of mathematics, Sniadeckis treats infinite mental images of space and time as incomprehensible to the human mind. He states that such infinite and absolute images are removed from mathematics. This view can be linked to Kant’s philosophy of mathematics and explored further in more detail. Sniadeckis’ treatment of Kantian a priori elements of cognition as innate ideas is incompatible with Kant’s theory; these elements are rather creations of the human mind for the purpose of application to empirical cognition. The basic difference between Kant’s transcendental and Sniadeckis’ empirical epistemological methodology explains in general many of Sniadeckis’ misunderstandings and disagreements with Kant’s theoretical philosophy. Daugirdas did not accept Kant’s transcendental philosophy and stayed in a paradigm of transcendent metaphysics, however this was determined not as much by incomprehension or inappropriate explanations of Kantian theories, as was the case for Sniadeckis, but by his philosophical aspirations that were different from those of Kant. Daugirdas’ loyalty to the principles of traditional metaphysical philosophizing also shows his acknowledgement of intellectual intuition – the affirmation of the significance of investigation prosecuted only by thinking, by concepts alone. Daugirdas referred to the archaic conception of logic grounding his metaphysics; he spoke about principles of common sense, constant natural laws of thinking, a universal mind etc, and this kind of epistemological view is less compatible with contemporary multifaceted logic than is Kant’s theory of cognition. Analyzing the Kantian conception of the thing-in-itself, Daugirdas saw in it a denial of the trueness of human cognition, but we can agree only partially with this opinion. This is one of the most crucial notions of Kant’s transcendental philosophy, and Daugirdas’ understanding of it is quite precise; however, as in the case of Sniadeckis, his attribution of radical, almost Berkeleyan, idealism to Kant has to be considered a misunderstanding. Similarly incorrect is the identification of Kant’s apriorism with innatism. Daugirdas’ empirical methodology in epistemology prevents him from admitting a conception of Kant’s transcendental theory of space and time. Daugirdas analyses the soul in a way that was usual in pre-Kantian metaphysics. Some kind of problematization of the soul concept can be seen in Kant’s philosophy; he no longer speaks about the transcendent, about criteria for empirical cognition ignoring the metaphysical exploration of soul, but only about a subject of cognition or transcendental consciousness – in this aspect, the collision of Sniadeckis’ transcendent and Kant’s transcendental metaphysics is most clearly revealed.

sTudia philoSophica kantiana 2/2017 17 Some Remarks on the Criticism of Kant’s Theoretical Philosophy in the Vilnius Epistemological School

Summary

Some Remarks on the Criticism of Kant’s Theoretical Philosophy in the Vilnius Epistemological School

Janas Sniadeckis and Angelas Daugirdas were professors at Vilnius University and paid a great deal of attention to Kant’s theoretical philosophy. Interpretations and critical evaluations of some of Kant’s theories done by these academics are surveyed and analyzed in this article. Both thinkers represent Lithuanian Enlightenment philosophy, and are the most famous representatives of the so- called Vilnius epistemological school, which emerged at the beginning of the 19th century in Lithuania. Current research focuses mainly on two fundamental philosophical distinctions apparent in Kant’s theoretical philosophy: the distinction between thing-in-itself and appearance, expressing Kant’s view on the limits of metaphysical and empirical cognition, and also on the difference between the form and matter of cognition which grounds Kant’s epistemological apriorism. The author seeks to assess the interpretational and critical positions of these key aspects of Kant’s theoretical philosophy as presented by Vilnius thinkers. The reconstructed and interpreted critical arguments of Sniadeckis and Daugirdas are compared with the philosophical theories of Kant. The author shows, and philosophically reflects upon, the conflict of different philosophical paradigms represented by Kant and the Vilnius philosophers, as well as highlighting the basic incompatibility of empiricism and transcendentalism as methodologies of epistemology, as seen in the early critical reception of Kant’s theoretical philosophy by the Vilnius epistemological school. Keywords: Janas Sniadeckis (Jan Śniadecki), Angelas Daugirdas (Anioł Dowgird), Kant’s theoretical philosophy, epistemology, apriorism, thing-in-itself, empiricism, metaphysics

Zhrnutie

Niekoľko poznámok ku kritike Kantovej teoretickej filozofie vilniuskou epistemologickou školou

Janas Sniadeckis a Angelas Daugirdas boli profesori na Vilniuskej univerzite a venovali veľkú pozornosť Kantovej teoretickej filozofii. Predmetom skúmania a analýzy sú v tejto štúdii interpretácie a kritické zhodnotenia niektorých Kantových

sTudia philosophica kantiana 2/2017 18 Edvardas Rimkus teórií realizované spomínanými akademikmi. Obaja myslitelia reprezentujú litovskú osvietenskú filozofiu a sú tiež najvýznamnejšími predstaviteľmi tzv. vilniuskej epistemologickej školy, ktorá sa objavila na začiatku 19. storočia v Litve. Súčasný výskum sa zameriava najmä na dve fundamentálne filozofické oblasti: na rozdiel medzi vecou osebe a tým, ako sa javí; vyjadrenými Kantovým názorom na hranice medzi metafyzickým a empirickým poznaním; a tiež na rozdiel medzi formou a hmotou v poznaní, čo predstavuje základ Kantovho epistemologického apriorizmu. Autor sa usiluje o posúdenie interpretačných a kritických pozícií spomínaných kľúčových aspektov Kantovej teoretickej filozofie, ako ich prezentovali vilniuski myslitelia. Rekonštruované a interpretované kritické argumenty Sniadeckisa a Daugirdasa sú porovnané s filozofickými teóriami Kanta. Autor prezentuje rozpor medzi rozdielnymi filozofickými paradigmami reprezentovanými Kantom a filozofmi z Vilniusu a filozoficky o ňom reflektuje, zároveň uvažuje o zásadnej nezlučiteľnosti empirizmu a transcendentalizmu ako metodológií epistemológie, pozorovateľných v skorších kritických úvahách o Kantovej teoretickej filozofii vilniuskou epistemologickou školou. Kľúčové slová: Janas Sniadeckis (Jan Śniadecki), Angelas Daugirdas (Anioł Dowgird), Kantova teoretická filozofia, epistemológia, apriorizmus, vec osebe, empirizmus, metafyzika

Dr Edvardas Rimkus Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies Faculty of Creative Industries, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University Vilnius, Lithuania [email protected]

sTudia philoSophica kantiana 2/2017 19 Kant’s Anthropology as a Coherent Lyubov E. Doctrine of Man Motorina1 National Research University, Moscow

Almost all varieties of modern philosophising, including philosophical anthropology, one way or another refer to the ideas of I. Kant. His thoughts and statements about the man just like gems are scattered throughout the philosophical horizon and live (despite the transformations) in the number of ideas, images, trends and concepts, times and generations2. Kant, for example, was read by the great Russian classic Lev Tolstoy who emphasized the coincidence of his views on the man with Kant’s views. Tolstoy collected and published the aphorisms of the outstanding German philosopher, and when answering the question: “Is Kant’s philosophy accessible to a common man and is it possible to popularize it?” – the Russian writer replied that if such statements still did not exist, then they would have been highly desirable. One of the sources of such a huge influence of Kant’s ideas on the intellectual history of mankind is his anthropology as a general doctrine about the man3. Kant is often compared to Socrates. The Hellenic sage brought philosophy down, established it on earth, digressed from outer space and concentrated on the man. Kant also starts to philosophise from his famous questions about the Man. For Kant the problem of the man, his self-determination always stood in the first place. Kant reflected on the Universe, the laws of being, knowledge and consciousness with only one goal: so that the man becomes more humane and as much possible keep the human in the man. The article attempts to identify those conceptual points, which would define the contour of the Kantian anthropologist as an integral study about a human. In

1 Lyubov E. Motorina. Professor, Chair of the Philosophy Department at Moscow Aviation Institute (National Research University), A-80, GSP-3 , 4 Volokolamskoe shosse, 125993 Moscow, Russia. 2 See, for example, Belás, Ľ., Andreanský, E., Zákutná, S.: Modern man as a philosophical problem. In: Filosofskoje obrazovanie. 2011, №1 (23), pp. 3-20; Motorina, L. E.: A man as anthropological integrity: philosophical reflection. In:Nova Prisutnost. 2017. Т. 15. № 1., pp. 31-46. 3 See Krotikova, T.: Filosofskaja antropologija Immanuila Kanta i Maxa Šelera. [Philosophical Anthropology of Immanuel Kant and Max Scheler]. In: Forum molodyh kantovedov. Мoskva: RAN, 2005, pp. 159-166.

sTudia philosophica kantiana 2/2017 20 Lyubov E. Motorina this case, we are not talking about a single book or his last work “Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view” (1798)4, the anthropological theme is present in all the famous works of Kant that brought him worldwide recognition as a great philosopher, it is also explicitly or implicitly present in his early works, drafts, essays, in personal correspondence. These concepts of integral Kant anthropology include the following ideas, views and observations: 1. Man is the unity of two worlds. Based on the understanding of the man as a creature belonging to two different worlds - a natural necessity and moral freedom, Kant distinguished anthropology in “physiological” and “pragmatic” senses. The first one explores what “nature makes of the human being; pragmatic, the investigation of what he as a free-acting being makes of himself, or can and should make of himself” (AA 07: 119)5. Explaining this thought the philosopher stressed: “All the interests of my mind (both speculative and practical) are united in the following three questions: 1) What can I know? 2) What should I do? 3) What may I hope? The first question is purely speculative. [...] The second question is purely practical. As such it may indeed fall within the province of pure reason, but still it is not transcendental, but moral, [...] The third question [...] is simultaneously practical and theoretical, so that the practical leads like a clue to a reply to the theoretical question and, in its highest form, the speculative question” (A 805 / B 833)6. Later on, Kant added to these three questions another one – “What is the man?”, which he declared the main question of philosophy: “The first question is answered by metaphysics, the second one – by morality, the third one – by religion, and the fourth one – by anthropology. But, in Kant’s opinion, in fact all this can be connected to anthropology because the first three questions refer to the last one.7

4 One can find the most contradictory judgments about this book: some authors consider this work as a result of the creation of the Kantian system (see Guliga, A. V.: Nemeckaja klasičeskaja filosofia. [German classical philosophy]. Moskva: Mysľ, 1986, pp. 301-313), others estimate it as a non-philosophical addition to the Kantian system (see Vasilyev, V. V.: Neulovimaja svoboda: problema osnovanij etičeskoj sistemy Kanta [Elusive Freedom: The Problem of the Foundations of the Ethical System of Kant]. In: Filosofskaja etika i nravstvennoje bogoslovije. Izdatel’stvo fonda Christianskaja mysl, 2003, p. 168). 5 Louden, R. B. and Kuehn, M. (eds): Kant: Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy), 2006, p. 3 6 Kant, I.: Critique of Pure Reason. Edited by P. Guyer and A. W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant), 1998, p. 677. 7 Kant, I.: Logika. Posibije k lekcijam [Logic. A Handbook for Lectures]. In: Kant I.: Traktaty i pisma sTudia philoSophica kantiana 2/2017 21 Kant’s Anthropology as a Coherent Doctrine of Man

Kant was convinced that the main task of philosophy is to know and understand life, and “[a]ll cultural progress, by means of which the human being advances his education, has the goal of applying this acquired knowledge and skill for the world’s use. But the most important object in the world to which he can apply them is the human being: because the human being is his own final end.”(AA 07: 119)8. So, according to Kant, a person lives in two worlds: phenomenal and noumenal. On the one hand, he is a phenomenon, a cell in a sensual world that exists according to its laws in the strict determination. But, on the other hand, he is noumen, a supersensual being that is subordinate to the ideal. Hence, the person has two characters: empirical created by the environment, and noumenal, intelligible, as if characteristic of it from the inside. Are they related to each other? Or the intelligible character is something beyond understanding that does not manifest itself in the imminent world?9 “How is freedom possible for the man?” – this was one of the main and most difficult questions for Kant. But where is it? Kant said that we could not find it in the world of ‘events’, the man is only free in the world of the ‘things as themselves’. Calling this freedom ‘elusive’ a modern researcher in the history of of foreign philosophy Vasiliev analyses in detail the ‘difficulty’ that, in his opinion, Kant faces. Vasiliev says: “And we have a contradiction: we can and cannot act as free creatures. It seems that this is exactly the main problem of Kant’s ethics. One cannot say that Kant avoids this difficulty. On the contrary, he in every possible way accentuates it and tries to find a solution in distinguishing the ‘intelligible’ and ‘empirical character’ of a person. An empirical character is a combination of natural causal relationships that form the phenomenal life of one or another individual. The intelligible character expresses the noumenal side of human life, reveals it as a free being. Kant’s idea is that noumenal freedom and phenomenal necessity can be combined under the assumption that the free choice made at the noumenal level is precisely what forms the empirical character of the person. Although all of his actions are mechanically determined, the laws and nature of this determination are specified by his free choice. Kant had serious hopes for this decision, although he agreed that it could not fully satisfy our mind... There is no consistent exit, with moral freedom remaining, from it. And sometimes Kant himself said that the difficulties mentioned are ‘insoluble’. What does this mean? Perhaps, we are talking about some miscalculations of Kant who could not create a coherent theory of freedom? Looking closely, however, we will notice

Moskva, 1980, p. 332. 8 Louden, R. B. and Kuehn, M. (eds): Kant: Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, ibid., p. 3. 9 Quote from the book. Guliga, A. V.: Nemeckaja klasičeskaja filosofia. [German classical philosophy], ibid., p. 122.

sTudia philosophica kantiana 2/2017 22 Lyubov E. Motorina that the contradictory nature of the Kant’s perspective is rather the evidence of its fundamental nature and speaks in favor of Kant. In fact, what is so bad in the contradiction? And if so, then “the best theory of freedom must be recognized as the one in which the inevitability of the contradictions concluded in this concept is shown with the greatest conviction”10. Quite a large quotation from the work of the modern author makes it possible to analyze and correlate, on the one hand – the interpretation of how Kant understood freedom; on the other hand – how Kant himself understood the relationship between the intelligible and empirical character of the man, and how this relationship manifested itself in a specific act, behavior generally. That’s the whole point, Kant wrote, that in the behavior of a person the connection between two characters is realized. This is the basis for a person’s “sanity” of the person, their responsibility. To save “freedom” Kant introduces the problem of the ideality of time. Time, according to Kant, is the order of phenomena in nature, over which no one is powerful, this is an unconditional connection of states, and freedom requires the manifestation of the will of the man. Therefore, if time is inherent in things, Kant argues, freedom is impossible. Only because in the intelligible world, according to Kant, there is no unconditional interconnection of causes and effects, there is no time, causality of a special kind is possible – “through freedom”, which only makes a person a moral being. In nature, the same reasons necessarily lead to the same actions. A person can review what they have done and, although the conditions have not changed, act differently11. “[T]he action is ascribed to the agent’s intelligible character; [...] regardless of all empirical conditions of the deed, is fully free, and this deed is to be attributed entirely to its failure to act” (A 555 / B 583)12. In the “Social Contract” Kant continues to deepen and vary the problem of freedom, considering the dependence of one person on another. In any case, Kant points to the regulative role of reason in determining actions, in the realization of the connection between two characters: the intelligible and the empirical, where, according to Kant, there is a particular kind of causality – “through freedom”. Thus, the problem of freedom occupies a central place in the anthropological concept of Kant, its relevance increases with the intensification of the contradictions between man and nature, the contradictions between civilizations, nationalities, religions, countries and peoples. Kant sees freedom as a universal law, only based on which all relations of people, nations, states, having different, and sometimes opposing in direction values, meaningful orientations, motives

10 Vasiliev, V. V.: Neulovimaja svoboda: problema osnovanij etičeskoj sistemy Kanta [Elusive Freedom: The Problem of the Foundations of the Ethical System of Kant], ibid., pp. 184-187. 11 Kant, I.: Kritika čistogo razuma [Critique of Pure Reason], ibid., pp. 475-484. 12 Ibid., p. 488. sTudia philoSophica kantiana 2/2017 23 Kant’s Anthropology as a Coherent Doctrine of Man

and goals can be formed. 2. Man and nature is an independent concept of the Kant’s anthropological doctrine, for the man as “his own last goal” is involved in another more inclusive integrity-nature. Kant sees nature as an infinite creation that encompasses all creatures brought to life by its inexhaustible wealth. “From the most sublime class among thinking beings to the most despised insect, not one link is indifferent to it; and not one can be absent without the beauty of the whole, which exists in their interrelationship, being interrupted by it.” (AA 01: 354)13 The man is so busy with himself – Kant observed, as if he was making instructions to us, today’s inhabitants of the planet – that he considered himself the only goal of God’s destiny, as if they meant only him when they were establishing laws governing the world. We know – he argued – that the totality of nature is the subject of divine wisdom and predestination. We are part of it, but we want to be the whole.14 In lectures on anthropology Kant said that the world is not a mass of wreckage, it is a kind of unity, a whole, and if so, then there must be a single goal from the past to the future (italics done by the author). For Kant, the main question was whether the person is the bearer of such a goal.15 Defining man as the last “goal for himself”, Kant emphasizes the need for unity of the goal of the man and the goal of the world itself, for any development from its point of view makes sense if development is guided by a common goal from the past to the future. However, over time, nature loses for the man a status of a supernal entity; it becomes for the man an object of use and transformation. From the moment when a person turns into a subject and the world – into an object (M. Heidegger), the man is in the illusion as if nature exists only for the person to know and transform it endlessly. But the world has its own goals, and in order to understand them, a person, in Kant’s opinion, needs to learn to “ask the world the right questions”, it means that he needs to try to penetrate the goals of the world itself. He wrote: “Reason, in order to be taught by nature, must approach nature with its principles in one hand, according to which alone the agreement among appearances can count as laws, and, in the other hand, the experiments thought out in accordance with these principles - yet in order to be instructed by nature not like a pupil, who has recited to him whatever the teacher wants to say, but like an appointed judge who compels witnesses to answer the questions he

13 Kant, I.: Universal natural history and theory of the heavens or essay on the constitution and the mechanical origin of the whole universe according to Newtonian principles (1755). In: Watkins, E. (ed.) Kant: Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant), 2012, pp. 182–308, here p. 297. 14 Quote from Gulyga, A.: Kant, Moskva: Molodaya Gvardiya, 1981, p. 37. 15 Ibid., p. 58.

sTudia philosophica kantiana 2/2017 24 Lyubov E. Motorina puts to them.” (B xiii)16. These words of Kant sound like a testament to humanity to reconsider its relationship with nature. Man can no longer exist outside nature as a whole being a lord, a transformer and a master. The person’s prospects are related to the fact that he must return to the world, conforming his actions with the laws of nature, find in it his place and the “new house”. Perhaps this home will become the world in both its meanings: the world as the Universe and the world as Consent. It is necessary to overcome the idea of ​​man’s domination over nature, to overcome the motive of the “technocratic will to complete reorganization, to the new creation of the Earth and the whole cosmos by the hands of man.”17 Such a “technocratic will” (P. Gaidenko) is dangerous because it invisibly forms in a person no perception of everything that exists in itself, that does not depend on a single individual or, moreover, acts as a supra-individual entity – space, nature, God, moral norms, cultural and religious traditions, having according to Kant, the force of universal legislation. 3. On the role of unconscious ideas in cognition – this concept was expressed by Kant initially in several lines of the entry work of 1764, but the idea of “dark”​​ or “vague” ideas is present throughout his work when he talks about common sense, intuition, productive imagination as spontaneity, as a worker tool for the synthesis of sensuality and reason. Kant assigns a special place to the theme of “dark ideas” in his final work “Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view”. The problem of the “role of unconscious representations” in cognition appeared in the 17th century. The active participant in the discussions was J. Locke, who rejected the possibility of the existence of uncontrolled mental states. Kant did not use the term “unconscious” when he spoke of “dark ideas”: “People have a tendency to jump too readily to conclusions, without paying attention to differing cases and investing the relevant concept with a significance appropriate to each respective instance. This may explain why, in the present case, no attention has been paid to what is probably a great mystery of nature: the fact, namely, that it is perhaps during sleep that the soul exercises its greatest facility in rational thought. The only objection which could be raised against this supposition is the fact that we have no recollection of such rational activity when we have woken up; but that proves nothing.” (AA 02: 290)18. Kant often made notes in drafts about

16 Kant, I.: Critique of Pure Reason. Edited by P. Guyer and A. W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant), 1998, p. 109. 17 Gaidenko, P.P.: Proryv k transcendentnomu. Novaja ontologija XX v. [Breakthrough to the Transcendent. New Ontology of the XX Century], Moskva: Respublika, 1997, p. 479. 18 Frierson, P.: Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology and Morality (1764). In: Frierson, P. and Guyer, P. (eds) Kant: Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime and Other Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy), 2011, pp. 219–248, here p. 237. sTudia philoSophica kantiana 2/2017 25 Kant’s Anthropology as a Coherent Doctrine of Man

“dark ideas”, which, in his opinion, can be more expressive than the clear ones. Calling such representations as a “midwife of thoughts”, Kant emphasized their connection with beauty, which, he said, must be inescapable, and therefore acts as the third world, a sort of intermediary between the phenomenal and noumenal world. Problems that already in the XVIII century worried Kant took a definite place in modern heuristics, as well as in the philosophy and methodology of science. A vivid example of the connection between ideas as a continuation of Kant’s thoughts about “unconscious representations” is the concept of “implicit knowledge” of the English scientist and philosopher M. Polanyi. He developed the main provisions of this concept in the middle of the last century, when, as it is well known, the idea of ​​“artificial intelligence” aroused scientists’ great interest. Working then at Manchester University, where the trend towards mathematization and formalization occupied a large place in research practice, M. Polanyi from the very beginning was highly critical of the idea of ​​identifying mechanical models of thinking with the processes of human thinking. In his discussions with colleagues, he tried to substantiate the thesis about the existence in any knowledge of an essential element of understanding, which, in his opinion, is inherent exclusively in human thinking and which he later called “hidden, implicit knowledge”19. He came to the conclusion that every member of the scientific community has a personal space for a spontaneous search for a solution to the problem determined by his own intellectual “passions”, which he admits at the moment only implicitly20. M. Grene notes that for M. Polanyi not the very existence of “unconscious uncertainty was important, but how this uncertainty works and what functions it performs”21. The main thing for the English scientist was not simply to recognize the existence of “informal” reasonableness, but to explore it as the ability of people. He stressed: “What I know implicitly, I know implicitly. This is a modification of my existence, this is personal.”22 Thus, in the objective, natural process of the development of scientific knowledge Polanyi includes a subjective-personal component in the form of “implicit knowledge”. He regards implicit knowledge as a multidimensional structure, where along with purely psychological states (dreams, individual experiences, etc.) there are also “theoretical schemes” that were historically developed in science and assimilated by an individual in their own experience. An analogy with the notion of “scheme” in Kant’s works involuntarily comes to mind, which emphasized the difference

19 Polanyi, M.: Personal Knowledge. Chicago, 1958. Ch. V. VI. 20 Grene, M.: Taсit Knowledge: Grounds for a Revolution in Philosophy. In: Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 1977, vol. 8, № 3, p. 165, 168. 21 Ibid., p. 165. 22 Polanyi, M.: Personal Knowledge, ibid., р. 17.

sTudia philosophica kantiana 2/2017 26 Lyubov E. Motorina between the scheme and the image. At the heart of concepts, according to Kant, there are not images, but schemes. He wrote that it is difficult to say how they arise; it is “hidden in the depths of the human soul art, the real tricks of which we are unlikely to ever be able to guess”23. The strength of the succession of ideas in science cannot disappear without a trace, as long as the relationship (scientific communication) between the researchers remains, whether it is direct or indirect is not important. In this connection, the well-known Russian scientist V. I. Vernadsky comes to an interesting conclusion: “The consciousnesses of individuals cannot be dissolved completely”, he wrote, “because they are deeply individual, and therefore not permeable to the end. Nevertheless, their strength lies in the fact that they give a constantly new reflection on the newly emerged – even if under their influence – requests... The latter is especially characteristic of classical works that pass from generation to generation and in each generation give birth to their own unique thoughts. Classical works as individual and vivid manifestations of human thought remain untouched against the background of a single scientific apparatus as individual scientific facts”24. This conclusion made by Vernadsky can be fully attributed to the great works of I. Kant and to his personality as well. 4. Observations (living contemplation) – as a method of anthropology– this concept is no less significant for the holistic doctrine of the man as an object that cannot be completely objectified. I. Kant not only possessed this amazing gift of “living contemplation”, but also with compelling enthusiasm wrote about this, viewing observations as a special kind of scientific fact: “The field for observations of these peculiarities of human nature is very extensive and still conceals a rich lode for discoveries that are as charming as they are instructive. For now I will cast my glance only on several places that seem especially to stand out in this region, and even on these more with the eye of an observer than of the philosopher.” (AA 02: 207)25. Such “points”, which Kant paid particular attention to, are numerous in his work. These are individuals, temperaments of people, images of men and women, and images of entire peoples. Kant’s observations and conclusions from them are a whole storehouse of wisdom, not yet sufficiently read and mastered as a methodology of philosophical anthropology. At the same time, his description of temperaments, peculiarities of national characters, to which he returned many

23 Quote from Gulyga, A.: Kant, ibid., p. 114 24 Vernadskyi, V.: Izbrannye trudy po istorii nauki. [Selected works on the history of science]. Moskva: Nauka, 1981, pp. 56, 247. 25 Frierson, P.: Kant: Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime and Other Writings. Edited by P. Frierson and P. Guyer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy), 2011, p. 13.

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times during the course of lectures on anthropology, served as the source of many well-known concepts and directions in the field of physiology, psychology, social psychology, empirical sociology and other sciences. At first glance, it may seem that the isolation of individual concepts (conceptual points) of Kant’s anthropology violates its integrity. But in this case, the integrity of the Kant’s doctrine was revealed through the involvement of another more comprehensive whole – Kant himself and his work. I. Kant lived for the man, created for the man, believed in the moral freedom of the man, his beauty and dreamed to bring a person to the Eternal World. He sought the human in the man, realizing that this question has no simple, let alone definitive, answer. On the future of the man Kant wrote: “We are not even properly familiar with what a human being actually is, even though consciousness and our senses should inform us about it; how much less will we be able to imagine what he will become in the future! Nonetheless the human soul’s desire for knowledge grasps greedily for this object so distant from it and strives to shed some light in such obscure cognition.” (AA 01: 366)26.

Summary

Kant’s Anthropology as a Coherent Doctrine of Man

The paper attempts to reveal conceptual items that can define the profile of Kantian anthropology as a comprehensive study of man. It also points out that anthropological subject is present in all Kantian works, including the fact that it is explicitly and implicitly identified in his early drafts, essays, and personal correspondence. The paper analyses four basic concepts: man as a unity of both worlds, man and nature, the role of unconscious perceptions in cognition and “live intuition” as anthropological method. The author investigates further development of Kantian ideas, findings, and conclusions and emphasises their significance and contribution in the development of anthropological principle in the modern philosophy. Keywords: anthropology, man, nature, necessity, freedom, implicit knowledge, live intuition

26 Kant, I.: Universal natural history and theory of the heavens or essay on the constitution and the mechanical origin of the whole universe according to Newtonian principles (1755). In: Watkins, E. (ed.) Kant: Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant), 2012, pp. 182–308, here p. 307.

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Zhrnutie

Kantova antropológia ako koherentná náuka o človeku

Príspevok sa pokúša odkryť konceptuálne prvky, ktoré môžu definovať obraz Kantovej antropológie ako komplexného štúdia človeka. Zároveň objasňuje, že antropologický subjekt je prezentovaný vo všetkých Kantových prácach a je explicitne a implicitne identifikovateľný aj v Kantových skorších prácach, esejach a osobnej korešpondencii. V štúdii je prezentovaná analýza štyroch podstatných konceptov: človek ako jednota dvoch svetov, človek a príroda, úloha nevedomého vnímania v poznaní a „životná intuícia“ ako antropologická metóda. Autorka skúma ďalší vývoj Kantových ideí, zistení a záverov a zdôrazňuje ich prínos a význam vo vývoji antropologického princípu v modernej filozofii. Kľúčové slová: antropológia, človek, príroda, nevyhnutnosť, sloboda, úplné vedenie, životná intuícia

Lyubov E. Motorina, Professor Chair of the Philosophy Department Moscow Aviation Institute (National Research University) Moscow, Russia [email protected]

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